


Set the Fire to the Third Bar

by knune



Category: Blind Dating (2006), Shortland Street
Genre: Blind Character, Chris Pine and Karl Urban make a lovely couple, Cliche, Crossover, End of the World, Killer virus, M/M, They found love in a hopeless place, last two people on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2186097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knune/pseuds/knune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world doesn’t end, not really, but humanity does. The tree falls in the forest, there’s just nobody around to hear it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set the Fire to the Third Bar

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote a few years ago and never really knew how to archive it here, due to the unique pairing. I suppose I finally figured it out. This features a mash up of characters from a Chris Pine movie (Danny from "Blinding Dating") and a Karl Urban New Zealand soap opera (Jamie from "Shortland Street"). It was written for a challenge and I quite like how it turned out. I figured it was about time to archive it. 
> 
> Not beta'd so any and all mistakes are the result of lazy proofreading. Also, Jamie didn't turn out to be much of a Kiwi since the slang website I was using wasn't that helpful. Oops.
> 
> Obviously, I don't own Blind Dating or Shortland Street. I'm just having some fun.

*

It really isn’t the end of the world. Time still thumps on. Seconds, hours, and days tick by like they always have. The sun rises, sets, rises again. Birds chirp, grass grows, rain falls, and the moon still hovers impossibly high in the night sky, smiling down at eternal emptiness. The Earth goes on, revolves on its axis, and sits prettily in the black vacuum of space like nothing has changed at all.

There are things that are constant, things that just don’t change no matter what happens. It’s all routine, a boring, endless repeat of events, and they go on and on regardless of politics, sickness, health, death, plague, a fucking apocalypse. The world doesn’t end, not really, but humanity does. The tree falls in the forest, there’s just nobody around to hear it anymore.

Humanity ends with a bad case of the sniffles, a cough, a sneeze, rather than a bang. There’s no alien invasion, no zombie uprising, nothing that movies have been plastering across big screens for decades. It’s a simple flu that kills Danny’s mother, his father, his sister, his brother. Leeza. The flu takes everyone he knows and cares about and he’s alone now.

The news had been calling it the _superflu_ but it seems like an understatement now. There has to be a more fitting description. _Death._ That sounds about right. It needs no other name, no other descriptors. That’s what it is, plain and simple.

Now it’s just Danny, alone, by himself. Danny, who stumbles around the house with his hands in front of him, his face wet, his head buzzing and throbbing, and he can’t believe this is happening, that this is his life.

And all Danny can think of, selfishly, is that for once he’s glad he blind so he doesn’t have to see the death in front of him, doesn’t have to see the way his mother and father are wrapped up in each other’s arms, the way Marie lays in her bed, still and cold, the way Larry’s head sags unnaturally against the arm of the sofa. He can’t see any of it and maybe it’s better that way, a little easier, but it doesn’t ease the pain in his chest, doesn’t stop the moisture from clinging to his eyelashes.

He’s so alone and maybe he can’t see the death, but he can hear the silence it has left behind.

*

Danny buries his family in the backyard. It takes days and it feels more like forever but he manages to find the shovel his father stored away in the shed and starts to dig in the backyard. He digs and digs until his muscles are so sore, he can barely move, until he has to scramble up the sides of the hole and claw at the dirt to make his way out.

He has to drag the bodies. There’s no one to help him, no one to lift the feet so he drags by the shoulders and he whispers _I’m sorry_ over and over again because this isn’t the sort of burial any of them deserve.

It’s not easy. He stumbles, his center of balance thrown off. The careful layout of the house that’s been stored in his head for years is skewed, a bit upside down, and he can’t reach out for the walls, to feel for the notches in the wallpaper, the hinges of the doors.

He knocks his head into something at one point and he thinks it’s a kitchen cabinet, and he bumps his hip into what he thinks is either a counter or the coffee table. He’ll be feeling the bruises that must be splattered across his body for weeks but they’re nothing to pay attention to and they’re nothing but a reminder that there’s a hole in the backyard where his family rests.

Danny lays them to rest and places what he thinks is a cross from the living room wall behind the mound. He’s never been to a funeral and he certainly doesn’t know what a proper burial ceremony is supposed to look like. So he sits by the grave, his knees tucked up under his chin, his arms wrapped tightly around his shins, and he mutters anything he remembers from the very few church sermons he actually paid attention to.

It’s not good enough, he should have hushed Larry when he leaned over and snickered into his ear and distracted Danny, but the words slip from his lips and he thinks maybe his mom would be proud and maybe his dad wouldn’t mind so much if he stumbled on a phrase, misquoted and screwed up scripture just a little bit.

He sits there until the air starts to cool and there are goosebumps springing up on his forearms, a shiver running through his spine. The sun must be going down, and the sweat dripping down his neck leaves him cold, chilled, and exhaustion is starting to creep into his bones. The long days of labor finally seeps into his system and the adrenaline he’s been running on is draining from his body, little by little.

He falls asleep there, by the cross, a random blade of grass sticking him in the neck, a cool breeze drifting across his body. He sleeps like the dead.

*

During the day, Danny blasts music throughout the house. Loud, obnoxious music that drifts from his stereo and fills the empty spaces of the house. He plays punk rock, his dad’s Beatles albums, his little sister’s _Now! This is Music_ cds, anything that creates noise and helps him forget just how alone he is.

So he spends his days with his eardrums pounding and it’s a distraction, for a little while anyway. He tricks himself, surrounds himself with the familiar rhythmic pulse of music, and it’s a bit easier to get out of bed in the morning, a little easier to walk past his parent’s empty room.

It’s at night when he feels the loneliness seep into his mind, when it’s quiet and all he can hear are crickets chirping outside of his window, and that’s when his thoughts turn to Leeza.

Leeza. Sweet, soft Leeza, and it’s hard to forget those last days with her. Those days when she coughed into her elbow, sniffled into her sleeve, and pressed her feverish skin against his and whispered promises that this was nothing and she was going to get better.

She tried to hide how bad it really was. There was no hiding the sound her head made hitting against her salad dish when she passed out in the middle of her family’s restaurant.

She’s gone now, long gone, has been for a few weeks now. Danny never even got a chance to say goodbye. Before he even knew what was happening, Leeza’s body was being taken overseas, to rest with her family. There was no funeral where he could burrow his head into his mother’s shoulder and hide his tears, no wake, no ceremony to give him peace and comfort. All of a sudden she was gone, almost like she was never there.

It’s here, in the depths of the night, when he’s huddled beneath a mountain of blankets, that his thoughts turn to her. And he tries; he tries so hard not to think about the warm weight of her hand on his body, the cool slide of her tongue against his. He knows he shouldn’t, but sometimes he lets his hand slip beneath the loose band of his boxers and he remembers Leeza in the worst way possible. Sometimes he thinks this is the only thing that keeps him sane.

When he comes, it’s with Leeza’s name on his lips and tears streaming down his face.

*

Danny goes through every can in the pantry, every box of cereal, every frozen dinner in the house. He finds every hidden piece of Halloween candy that Marie had stuffed in her sock drawer. He eats everything he can get his hands on. The house is littered with wrappers, empty containers and it’s hard to walk, dangerous to navigate throughout the narrow hallways.

It takes a while, his mother had stocked up for the worst, but it happens. Danny runs out of food. He’s going to have to leave the house, fend for himself in the big, bad world. Or whatever is left of it.

He doesn’t plan to go far. Just to the corner store and back but he packs like he’s leaving for days. He fills a canteen with water and slings it around his neck, straps an empty backpack across his shoulders, shoves his cane into his back pocket and his wallet into the other. Finally, he grabs the baseball bat he abandoned when he was seven and stored in the dark corners of his closet. It’s heavy, solid in his hands, and a little awkward to hold.

He doesn’t have a gun, doesn’t have anything that can really make a dent if there’s someone out there, someone who doesn’t want to play nice. If there’s anyone left, that is. The bat is the best he can do and he holds it tightly, so tightly he can feel small splinters of pine digging into his palm, slicing into his skin and tearing him open. He doesn’t loosen his grip.

It’s Saturday morning when he leaves the house, he thinks anyway. It’s hard to keep track of time. The days blend into nights, the nights blend into the mornings and it’s hard to grasp up from down anymore. He doesn’t wake up to the smell of bacon cooking on the stovetop anymore, doesn’t fall asleep with his fingers curled around Leeza’s hair.

It feels like morning though, there are birds annoying chirping somewhere close by, and it must have rained during the night because there’s that distinct, earthy, fresh after rain scent drifting in the air. It’s eerily quiet though and unlike the house, he can’t fill the neighborhood with thumping beats and nauseatingly loud drumming.

There are no car horns beeping, neighbors yelling, kids skateboarding down the sidewalk. The scuff his sneaker makes against the metal threshold is the loudest thing for miles and it almost startles him, almost sends him reeling backwards onto his ass but his fingers dig into the door frame and he manages to stay upright.

One by one, he loosens his fingers from his hold on the door and pries himself away. He tightens his grip against the hilt of the bat and for the first time in weeks, he leaves his home.

*

The corner store is locked up, padlocked with metal and steel, and Danny loses his shit. He tugs at the lock and it feels massive under his fingers, like it’s some kind of cartoon padlock, huge and foreboding. It’s the only thing keeping him out of the store and he needs to get in.

And maybe it’s the tension running through his veins, the hunger grumbling in his gut, or maybe it’s just the anger stage setting in. He’s not sure what sets him off but he starts wailing away on the storefront with the Louisville slugger and he’s screaming, some strange, guttural shriek that sounds foreign and strange, and there are tears wetting his face.

He swings harder and harder and there’s a loud crunch but no satisfying sound of glass breaking, no alarm shrilling in his ears. The glass won’t give but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

Then suddenly, in mid-swing, when his lungs are begging for air and his voice is getting horse, he feels a hand fall on his shoulder and he stops. He stops screaming, stops bashing in the front window of the store. He drops his bat.

“Hey, stop! That’s not going to break. It’s tempered.” The voice behind him is weird, not from around here, and it’s an accent Danny’s only heard on television.

Danny spins around and his hands immediately fly to his face and he wipes his cheeks with sore fingertips. He wants to make excuses for himself because he’s not a vandal, he’s just hungry, but his throat is sore and he can’t quite make his mouth work.

“You’re bleeding,” the accent says and the hand leaves Danny’s shoulder and grabs at his palms instead. “Looks deep. I’ve got some bandages in my pack.” Then Danny’s hands are empty and there’s some rustling, some jostling around and it must be this guy searching for medical supplies.

Danny runs his fingers over his palm and there’s an unmistakable sticky warmth coating his fingers. He must’ve been holding the bat too tightly, the wood must have splintered and cut him somehow, and it’s funny that he didn’t even feel it. “You’re a doctor?”

The hands are back on Danny’s, pushing and prodding and then there’s something wet on his palm, something stinging like an antiseptic. “No, I used to be an ambulance officer,” the voice says. “Sort of like your paramedic, I guess.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. You don’t have to fix me up.” Danny starts to pull away but the ambulance officer holds on tight. “Really, I feel fine.”

“Adrenaline. You were wailing away on this thing quite nicely.” The guy must apply a bandage now because there’s something soft and sticky against Danny’s palm and it feels almost like his mother’s favorite sweater. “It doesn’t look like you need stitches though. Lucky.” He finally pulls his hands away from Danny’s.

“Thanks.” Danny lets his fingers trail across the bandage and it’s thick and maybe it was worse than this guy was letting on. It’s starting to throb and he balls his fist, swallows the bandage in his hand. “You got a name?”

“Sure, don’t we all?” The guy laughs, a short, quick chuckle, and he stops almost as soon as he starts. “Jamie.”

“I’m Danny.” Danny reaches out in front of him with his right hand, to where he’s sure Jamie is standing. “You hungry?”

It’s not quite the start of a beautiful friendship but it’ll do.

*

It turns out that the store has a back door that someone forgot to lock. They let themselves in and after smashing the hell out of the alarm until it stops blaring, they sit in the produce aisle, side by side, surrounded by a pile of food.

Danny’s got a lap full of Twinkies and there’s cream at the corner of his mouth that he can’t quite get with his tongue. His stomach has quieted but the sugar overdose is blazing through his bloodstream and he feels a bit buzzed, a bit out of sorts. He feels almost content.

“So you uh, live around here then?” Jamie asks, his teeth crunching down on something. Some kind of chip and from the smell of it, the faint scent of tortilla and nacho cheese, maybe it’s a Dorito.

He’s got a mouthful of Twinkie but Danny nods and talks around a mouthful of cake. “Yeah, down the block.” It’s not the best show of manners and he’s sure his mother would slap him upside the head if she was here. But she’s not. “I’ve been coming to this store for years. This is the first time I tried to break in though.”

Jamie snickers a little, still chomping away on his chips. The scent of nacho cheese is stronger now and it lingers in the air but it’s better than the rotting stench of death that’s been filling Danny’s nostrils for weeks and weeks.

“You’re a Kiwi, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m in the states doing some work for Planned Parenthood. You have an affinity for accents or something?” The words are a little sloppy, a little mumbled, and Jamie must be licking the cheese off his fingers. The bag crunches against and it sounds like there’s plastic twisting now and a clip securing the folded top.

Danny shrugs because this is second nature to him, not something he’s ever thought about. He can’t see a damn thing but he can hear a pin dropping on the other side of the house. “I have good ears.”

“Can I ask you something?” Jamie asks and even though they’ve only just met, it’s almost like he’s been sitting on this, like the question has been dangling at the end of his tongue and he just now found his balls and decided to ask.

“Shoot.”

Jamie pauses and he’s moving around, squirming a bit, and his thigh brushes against Danny’s, just for a moment before moving away again. “Have you always been blind?”

Danny almost chokes on the cake and he leans forward, coughing, reaching out for the bottle of Gatorade he knows is there somewhere. It winds up in his hands somehow and he chugs it down, chugs until his throat is clear and he can breathe again.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer. I shouldn’t have asked.” Jamie’s hand is on Danny’s back, rubbing softly, so softly.

“No, it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting that.” Danny fiddles with the empty wrappers in his laps, keeps his hands busy, creasing the plastic and he’s getting cream all over his pants, his fingers. “I’ve been like this since birth. It’s not a…symptom.”

Jamie pulls away and he’s quiet for a minute. He isn’t chewing away on his chips, isn’t squirming around. He’s still and silent and maybe the wheels in his head are churning. Maybe he’s trying to figure out what to say. Surely there’s an apology hanging off his tongue. That’s what everybody says when they see the poor blind guy.

Danny slides the Twinkie wrappers off his lap and the cake is sitting like a block of lead in his stomach. He reaches up to the fruit display above his head and yanks down an apple. Polishing it on his sleeve, he holds it out for Jamie. “It’s not a big deal.”

Jamie takes the apple and there’s a loud, satisfying crunch as he bites into it. His mouth full of apple, he mumbles a simple _okay_ and leaves it at that.

*

They move into the baked goods section and Danny is making his way through a box of donuts. They’re old, stale, but the perfect after-Twinkie snack. He’s going to regret this binge later, when his stomach is protesting and he’s lying across the cold porcelain of the toilet. For now, it’s worth it.

Jamie isn’t on the same destructive binge that Danny is on. He stopped eating a while ago and he’s been rearranging his pack, shuffling items around, shoving what probably is canned goods in wherever they’ll fit. This guy has a good head on his shoulders and he’s thinking ahead while

Danny sits on his ass and shoves baked goods into his face. The bag zips up suddenly and Jamie must be done, must have given up on shoving that last can of Bean and Bacon soup in there.

“You think we’re it?” Danny asks, rubbing his frosting covered fingers together. “I mean, is there anyone else out there?”

“I doubt it, mate. You’re the first person I’ve seen in a long time.” There’s a bit more rustling and Jamie must be setting the pack aside, getting it out of the way. They’re sitting close together, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, and this is close enough to hear the rise and fall of Jamie’s chest, the tap of his nails on the laminate flooring. “I’m sort of relieved. I thought I was alone.”

“We can’t be it. There has to be someone else.” They can’t be alone, they can’t be the only two stupid, lucky fucks left. Danny isn’t prepared for this, he can’t handle this. He’s not cut out for survival, he’s not cut out for a hell of a lot of things.

Danny might be independent, might find his way to his doctor’s appointments and classes without needing his cane or someone holding his hand, but he’s never been on his own. Up until a few weeks ago, his mom still woke him up, washed his clothes, made his dinner. They can’t be it because he’s not ready for this and he’s so tired of feeling lonely. “Someone in charge or someone who…”

“No. There’s nobody,” Jamie says bluntly and his tone is sharp enough that Danny drops his thoughts. The discussion is over before it ever really began. “You’re the first person I’ve seen in weeks. Alive anyway.”

Danny returns to his donuts and they’re quiet again, for a few moments, and then there are fingers on Danny’s face and his first instinct is to jerk away, demand what is going on, but he sits there, let’s Jamie touch him and it’s sort of nice. “What are you doing?”

Jamie presses something cool and wet against Danny’s cheek and it must be one of those wet wipe cloths from the baby section. “You have blood on your face.”

Danny’s hands fly to his face and he’s hot, flushed, and he’s sure he’s beet red. He must have smeared blood on his skin earlier, when he was rubbing away his tears, his frustration. He turns away from Jamie and scrubs and scrubs until he’s sure his cheeks must be shiny, good as new. “Thanks,” he mutters and his appetite is gone now.

“Don’t mention it.”

And Jamie doesn’t. Danny keeps his face hidden, tilted down toward the floor and fiddles with his bag to keep his hands busy. The box of donuts now abandoned, Danny begins to load his pack with supplies. He starts with the leftover can of soup Jamie shoves into his lap.

*

Danny isn’t sure how long they’ve been in the supermarket, how long they’ve been stuffing their faces, their bags. His belly is full, the loud and ridiculous growling subsided, and now he’s starting to get tired. It must be getting late, maybe after midnight, and sleeping with a bag of potatoes as a pillow isn’t his idea of comfort.

“What now?” The words sound hollow as they leave Danny’s mouth. Whatever they do now, whether they stick together, separate, take a giant leap off a cliff, none of it really matters. The world has all but stopped and trying to pretend it hasn’t, trying to live normally, it’s a waste of time. But they can’t sit in this grocery store for the rest of their lives.

Jamie is still at Danny’s side, hasn’t moved much in the past hour except to check on that bandage on Danny’s palm. He ran his fingers over the gauze for a second and then let the hand go with a satisfied grunt. “I don’t know. Don’t you want to go home?”

Danny hadn’t been planning this when he woke up this morning with his stomach aching and his mouth watering. He doesn’t have a toothbrush on him, a change of clothes, anything. But there’s nothing left here for him, nothing but memories of tears and headaches and digging and digging until his palms hurt and he was short of breath.

Home isn’t _home_ anymore. It’s a lonely shell of its former self and Danny doesn’t want to be there, not anymore. “No,” he finally says and it feels a bit like a weight has lifted from his shoulders. “There’s nothing there for me.”

There’s some shuffling and Jamie’s voice suddenly floats around as he speaks. “Where do you want to go? We can go anywhere. I mean, if you want to stick with me.” He must be on his feet now, pacing by the squeak the rubber soles of his shoes makes on the slick linoleum flooring.

“I’ve always wanted to go to California. You think we can do that?” Danny reaches out and grabs Jamie by the ankle, stops him in his tracks. “I know it’s a long drive.” He tilts his head up and tries to ignore the warmth radiating off Jamie’s leg beneath what feels like heavy denim.

“We have nothing but time, mate.” Jamie’s fingers suddenly cover Danny’s and he’s prying the hand around his ankle off. He doesn’t let Danny’s hand go but pulls him up, until they’re chest to chest, toe to toe, standing in the middle of the bakery. “I think we can swing that.”

They’re close, really close, and Danny’s breath stills in his lungs. He just met this Jamie guy a few hours ago, he could be anyone, could be some kind of serial killer, but it feels like they’ve known each other forever. There’s something about this guy, and Danny can’t quite put his finger on it, that he likes. Maybe Danny just likes that he’s not alone anymore.

Danny coughs out the air he’s been holding and he’s far too aware of how close they’re standing. He takes a nervous step back and he rams his hip straight into the donut display behind him. And then there’s pain, radiating, blossoming throughout his pelvic bone. Embarrassing, excruciating pain.

“We can leave in the morning,” he mutters through gritted teeth and the only thing that saves him from hiding his face in the middle of a stale Bavarian cream is the feeling of Jamie’s fingers clamping onto his hip, massaging the pain away and Danny knows it’s going to be a long, long night.

*

In the morning they find the owner of the store slumped against a desk in the back office. The room smells rancid, sour, and any appetite that had clawed its way back into Danny’s stomach during his barely six hours of sleep suddenly disappears. He pulls his shirt up over his nose and instead of decomposition he breathes in the scent of his mom’s fabric softener and that’s almost worse than the dead body.

“How long do you think he’s been dead?” Danny asks, hovering by the doorway. He remembers this guy, George, remembers the way he used to ask after Danny’s family, used to help him find what he needed and carry the bags home. He was a nice guy and didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve to have what Jamie claims is a fly crawling over his open and glazed over eyeball.

“A while,” Jamie replies and his tone is wet, thick, a little broken, and maybe all this death is getting to him too.

“Shit.” Danny holds onto his shirt with one hand and then blindly reaches out toward where he thinks the body is. His fingers bump into something hard, the side of the desk perhaps, and he feels around until he finds George, finds his face, and the skin feels rigid, porous, and a bit slimy. He wants to pull away but he keeps his hand steady and closes George’s eyes. “He was a nice guy.”

“I’m sure he was,” Jamie says and then there’s noise, the opening and closing of drawers, the shuffling of what are probably papers, and then the familiar jingle of metal. “You think he’d mind if we borrowed his car?”

Danny takes a step back, away from the desk, and lets the shirt drop from his nose. “No,” he replies, his voice unobstructed by fabric now.

Jamie jingles the keys again and then grabs Danny by the forearm. “Let’s get out of here then.” He drags Danny out of the office, out of the store, away from the nauseously pungent air, and into the bright, warm sunshine.

*

Danny’s never left the small four corners of his town. He’s never ventured outside of the city limits, never step foot across the line that separates his city from the next one over. He’s never taken a field trip to another state, never packed up and left for the summer.

He sits nervously in the passenger seat of what is some kind of gas guzzling SUV (and Jamie’s been whining about the gas tank since he set eyes on the car), and fiddles with the cap of the bottle of water he has in his lap. He wants to leave, wants to travel across the country and expand his horizons, but it means leaving so much behind and he never really got the chance to say goodbye.

“You okay?” Jamie says from the left and the car is slowing down, coming to a stop now. “You look like you might chunder all over the dashboard.”

Danny scrapes his nails against the hardened ridges of the plastic cap and keeps his head tilted toward the window. This is a bit embarrassing to admit, especially to someone who’s probably traveled the world, someone who is far away from home. “I’ve never left this town before.”

Jamie says nothing for a minute and then his hand snakes onto Danny’s thigh and squeezes his knee. “We don’t have to go. We can stay here.” This guy is too nice, too accommodating, and it’s a miracle that they’ve met but it’s becoming harder and harder for Danny to imagine being alone, being without Jamie.

Danny shakes his head, twists the cap on his bottle back and forth, but all he can think about is the hot heat of Jamie’s hand, the way it’s burning into his thigh, the way it’s almost natural to feel Jamie’s touch. “No. I want to go. It’s just weird, ya know?”

“I know, trust me, but we can come back. This doesn’t have to be goodbye forever.” Jamie’s fingers are massaging Danny’s knee now, digging into the fabric of his pants, and it feels just short of amazing.

Danny nods, twists the cap off his water and takes a good, long swig, like he’s going to get the courage he needs from the bottom of the bottle. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and then turns toward Jamie. “I’m ready.”

The car starts rolling again and they drive across the county line. For the first time in Danny’s life, he leaves home, and he does it with Jamie’s hand on his leg.

*

The roads are dangerous, hard to navigate, and there are stopped cars everywhere, dead bodies behind the wheel, in the back seat, in car seats. Jamie weaves around the vehicles, throwing Danny from side to side in his seat and he grabs onto the glove compartment, scrambles to hold onto anything that will anchor him in place.

“Bugger,” Jamie mutters before swerving again. Both hands are on the wheel now and he claims they’re somewhere around Pittsburgh, and they haven’t been driving for more than a few hours.

The SUV lurches and they’re driving over something now and for what it’s worth, Danny hopes it grass and not a person. “This is ridiculous.” Danny’s hands are tight against the plastic of the dashboard. He’s holding on so tight he’s probably leaving small, individual dents behind in the veneer where his fingers are.

“Should be better once we hit a highway,” Jamie responds with a tight tone. He’s concentrating, focusing on weaving in and out of the traffic, and Danny imagines that he has soft frown lines embedded in his forehead, maybe a delicate line of sweat beaded against his brow. The rest of his face is blank though. Danny has no idea what this stranger looks like.

Danny’s stomach leaps along with the next lurch of the car and his mouth is beginning to water in the worse way and he really needs to stop feeling like he’s going to throw up. “Please tell me that there is one around the corner.”

“There’s one around the corner,” Jamie says and his voice doesn’t seem as tight now even though he’s still weaving, still sawing on the steering wheel and cutting a line through a minefield.

Danny laughs, he rests his head against the cool window pane to his right, and he laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long, long time. He forgot how good it feels to just let go and this is almost normal, almost like it used to be. He laughs until the car pitches forward and he smacks his forehead hard against the stupid window.

He rubs at his forehead and this time when he starts laughing, Jamie joins in and it’s fine. Just fine.

*

They stop at a motel somewhere in Bumfuck, Ohio, when Jamie starts veering off the highway and it has nothing to do with the dead and abandoned cars littered amongst the roads. It’s one of those cheap motels Danny’s heard about on television, the kind where there are ice machines in the corridor (and Danny knows because he smacked straight into it) and towels in the bathroom that are threadbare, thin, and have holes the size of fists in them.

Luckily the room they pick is empty, no bodies to clean up, no stench to fill their nostrils. It’s as clean as this run down place is probably going to get, according to Jamie, and Danny sits on the bed, the mattress squeaking under his weight. He feels around and the bed feels big, huge, and his parents had one like this, so large he used to get lost when he laid in it. It’s a king.

“We can find another room, with two beds,” Jamie says and he’s far away, probably still hovering by the door.

Danny shrugs and it’s no big deal. He used to share a bed with his brother and unless Jamie wets the bed the way Larry did, he doesn’t really care. It’s a bed, not the hard, unforgiving floor of a grocery store or the stiff front seat of a car. He’s bone weary, sore, uncomfortable, and he doesn’t care who he has to share this mattress with as long as he gets to lay on it. “This is fine.”

He moves to one side of the bed, the right side and claims it as his own. He doesn’t stick a stake into the comforter, a flag into the box spring, but he sprawls out on the right and this is his side, his pillow, his thirty-eight inches of space. He toes his shoes off and lays against a pillow that smells a little old, a little bit like it needs a good washing, but it’s soft, smooth against his cheek and beggars can’t be choosers.

Jamie sits down on the left and he’s fidgeting again, moving around, fluffing his pillow, pulling back the comforter. He finally lays down, settles in, and then it’s silent in the room and Danny can hear the quiet puffs of air escaping from Jamie’s lungs. He thinks Jamie has fallen asleep until he feels a hand on his abdomen, not caressing, not massaging, but just lying there innocently.

“I have a girlfriend,” Danny blurts out and he doesn’t just break the silence, he shatters it with a hammer, crushes it into a million tiny pieces. It’s the dumbest thing to say for so many reasons. “I used to, before all this.”

Jamie yanks his hand away and his breathing has quickened now and Danny can just imagine how fast his heart must be beating, how hard it’s thumping away at the inside of his chest. “I’m sorry,” Jamie whispers and Danny’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, the touch or the loss of life.

Danny reaches out, trying to find Jamie’s hand. His fingers just sort of dangle pathetically in midair for a second until he hits Jamie’s side, his arm, and then finally that hand and he tangles their fingers together. “No. I mean, I don’t really know about this sort of thing,” he says and it’s a quiet admission and saying it out loud, admitting that there’s something between them, it’s a bit harder than he thought it would be.

“Oh.” Jamie chuckles and he sounds a little more than relieved. His fingers tighten around Danny’s, his thumb brushes against his knuckles. “That’s okay, trust me.”

And oddly, Danny does, probably more than he should trust someone he’s only known for a few days. He sits up, crosses his legs in front of him and turns toward Jamie. There’s something he’s wanted to do for a while now, something he has to do. “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah,” Jamie breathes out in little more than a whisper and then he’s moving around, sitting up and his knees press against Danny’s. “Go ahead.”

Danny’s hands are a little unsteady and he’s nervous, more nervous than he’s ever been with this sort of thing. It doesn’t help, not much, but it gives him an idea, the slightest bit of a clue. Jamie is a puzzle and this is the last piece he needs to slide into place, until he gets a complete picture and knows who this person is, really is.

His fingers shake like an earthquake is roaring through his body and he can’t stop the tremors, can’t keep the nerves away, but he touches Jamie’s face, soft and gentle. He feels the soft contours of his forehead, the fine delicate lines engrained in his skin, and then neatly trimmed eyebrows, not too thick, not too thin. He runs his fingers down his cheeks, over the scratchy, unshaven stubble, down to supple and plush Cupid’s bow lips.

It isn’t much of a picture but it gives Danny some idea and he really likes the image he has in his head. “You’re very symmetrical,” he says and it’s the basic open mouth, insert foot adage and he stumbles to make a quick recovery. “Uh, very handsome, I think.”

The corner of Jamie’s mouth lifts and Danny feels the laugh lines, the subtle marks in his skin. “Ta,” Jamie responds, grabbing Danny’s hand and taking it away from his face. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

And Danny probably should have been expecting it, should have paid a bit more attention to the way Jamie is massaging his knuckles, the way his thumb ghosts over his skin, but he’s shocked, surprised, when he feels those lips suddenly pressed against his.

It’s a little awkward at first and Danny doesn’t know which way to tilt his head, how much pressure to exert, when to open his mouth, but Jamie is kissing him and he forgets everything else except for the soft caress of lips against his. When they part Danny is out of breath, somewhat lightheaded, and his cheeks burn in a way they never did when he kissed Leeza.

“Goodnight, Danny,” Jamie says as he gives him another peck and then that’s it. It’s time for bed.

*

Danny wakes up in the morning with Jamie molded against him, wrapped around him so tightly he’s not sure how he’s been breathing throughout the night. Jamie’s arms are tight around his waist, his leg thrown over Danny’s hip, and his erection is nestled against Danny’s ass.

It should be strange, this new feeling, and it’s completely out of Danny’s ballpark, but he doesn’t move away, doesn’t inch away until he can crawl out of bed and hide in the bathroom. No, he lies there, in the warm, safe cocoon of Jamie’s arms and gently rocks back against the hardness. He hears a gasp, the smallest intake of air, and he knows Jamie is awake now, awake and willing.

“Morning,” Jamie mumbles and he buries his nose into Danny’s neck, presses small, wet kisses along the length of exposed skin. “Sleep well?”

Danny nods and he can’t form words right now, can’t focus on making his larynx work, and if he opens his mouth now, he’ll moan, loudly and embarrassingly. So he clamps down, grinds his teeth together and swallows back the sound that’s forcing its way up his esophagus.

Jamie chuckles softly into Danny’s skin and then his hands are roaming, up Danny’s side, over the hem and up the thin fabric of his cotton t-shirt. “I’ll take that as a yes.” His hand wanders again, this time down, down, down, until it stops at the waistband of his shorts. “We don’t have to do anything. We can stop.”

It’s a disclaimer Danny doesn’t really want, doesn’t really need, and with his voice out of order, the only thing he can do is put his hand over Jamie’s and push it down beneath his shorts. When Jamie takes him into his hand, wraps his fingers around him, Danny whines, lets out the moan he’s been biting back and he can’t even bring himself to care.

This is bliss, simple and pure, and this feels good, this feels right. This makes Danny’s heart thump wildly against his ribcages, makes his veins bulge, his nerves jump, his brain jitter until it bounces off the contours of his skull and threatens to pop out of his head through his ear canal.

It’s only regrettable that it took death after death after death for Danny to feel this way.

*

They’re somewhere in South Dakota, at a rest stop that lives up a bit too much to its name. There are people resting everywhere here: in their cars, in the restrooms, on the floor by the vending machines. It’s unsettling, a little sad, but Danny blocks it out, listens to the static on the radio, the soft, steady in and out of Jamie’s lungs, and he manages to forget the death they’re surrounded by.

Jamie’s in the back seat, exhausted from the long drive, and he’s supposed to be sleeping, supposed to be getting some much needed shut eye. Instead, he’s working his way through a bag of Cheetos he managed to shake out of one of the vending machines.

Danny sits in the passenger seat, his bare feet pressed against the glove compartment, and he wiggles his toes against the smooth, cool wooden finish of the dashboard. He’s chomping away on a Nutrigrain bar he had in his pack, washing it down with a warm bottle of water, and he thinks that the days of having bacon and eggs for breakfast may be long gone.

“Do you miss New Zealand?” Danny asks and it’s something he’s been thinking about since they drove across the county line and he left his home behind.

He misses his house, the way it smelled like vino and pinecones at Christmas, the way the heater used to go on the fritz in January and he used to have to huddle under his covers until he was so warm, he was sure he was going to suffocate in his sleep. He misses the bus route he used to take, the basketball court where he hustled idiots for money, the psychiatrist office he visited far too often.

Danny misses his family; surely Jamie must miss his own.

Jamie crunches down on a chip and then answers, “Of course. It’s home.”

“Don’t you want to go back?” The Nutrigrain wrapper is empty now and there’s blueberry filling all over Danny’s fingers. He licks at them, tastes the fruit against his tongue (and remembers how warm and wet Jamie’s mouth is).

It sounds like Jamie crumples his bag, tosses it aside and Danny hopes his question didn’t cause Jamie to lose his appetite. “Maybe. My family is gone, my friends are gone. I know it.”

Danny nods, reaches his hand back until he feels Jamie, feels the softness of his shirt and he wraps his fist in the material. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Ta,” Jamie says and then it’s quiet, like a switch has been flipped and the mood is heavy now, weird. It’s becoming harder to ignore the bodies outside of the car, the memories that keep flooding in. Danny lets go of Jamie’s shirt.

Resting his head against the window pane, Danny feels the cool glass against his cheek and he closes his eyes. He tries not to think about the things he left behind, the mound in his backyard back home, Leeza’s clammy hands, but he can’t shut it out anymore. He shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have opened his damn mouth. He’s tipped the scales here and he’s not sure how to fix it.

He doesn’t want to spend his time thinking about this, dwelling on it, because it’s all around him. Everything is a reminder, and it’s just the two of them. No matter how hard he tries to forget, it’s impossible, always lingering around the edges of his mind. He misses normal and it makes his chest hurt.

After some time (and Danny was sure Jamie had fallen asleep), Jamie breaks the uncomfortable silence and asks, “What’s in California?” The scales seem to tip the other way again and Danny almost lets out a sigh of relief.

“Sand, sun and surf?” Danny suggests and those are probably reasons people go to California. They sound good rolling off his tongue. “Movie stars? Big houses?”

“That’s why you want to go?”

Danny shrugs, adjusts his head against the pane, and he should have taken a pillow from the motel, should just give up and crawl into the back with Jamie. “I like movies,” he replies like that should be enough of an explanation.

Maybe it is because Jamie just says sure and before Danny knows what happens, Jamie is snoring in the back seat.

*

They find a diner off some random highway in Utah. It reminds Danny of the diners he visited with his family growing up, of the one down the street that served the best banana cream pie he’s ever had. This one is small and cozy, has laminate counter tops and what feels like sticky, maple syrup encrusted vinyl on the seats. This diner feels familiar, feels a hell of a lot like home.

Danny is perched at the counter on a bar stool and his feet dangle in the air, the soles of his shoes barely brushing against the linoleum flooring. He twists from side to side on the stool, lets his legs sway to and fro, and he’s five years old again, waiting for his pie to be served.

There’s a jukebox in the corner and Jamie managed to dig up a dime to play a song. He’s flipping through the albums, making soft noises when he finds one he dislikes, a sort of huffy sound, and humming when he finds one that isn’t too bad. He’s been over there for at least ten minutes now and he still hasn’t picked a song.

“Play it once, Sam,” Danny quotes, swinging himself to a halt, “For old times’ sake.”

Jamie laughs and finally, finally he picks a song, and Danny can’t help but chuckle a little when _Lime in the Coconut_ starts blaring from the jukebox. “It’s not quite _As Time Goes By_ , but it’ll do, right?”

“It’ll do,” Danny agrees and then Jamie is behind the counter like he works there, slapping his hands against the laminate and leaning forward. He’s close, so close Danny can smell the Irish Springs soap he showered with this morning at the hotel.

“So _Casablanca_ , huh?” Jamie asks and he pushes a glass of water into Danny’s hands.

Danny shrugs, wraps his hands around the tumbler and it’s cold, refreshing, and his fingers slips and slide against the condensation beading against the glass. “It’s my favorite. I listen to it a lot.”

“It’s no _Die Hard_ but I guess it’s a good movie.” Jamie laughs and then he’s moving around, rummaging in drawers, opening doors, slamming them closed. Then something hits the grill and starts to sizzle and that’s when Danny’s mouth starts to water.

Licking at his lips, Danny’s chugs down some water and tries not to drool at the smell of hamburger cooking in front of him. “We’ll be there soon, right? California?”

“Are we there yet?” Jamie works the grill, presses the patties down until there’s a loud, satisfying sizzle, and even though Danny’s been eating all morning long, a Nutrigrain bar doesn’t really compare to a juicy, thick burger. “Almost.”

“Almost,” Danny repeats and it’s exciting, scary, exhilarating. He’s almost to the other side of the country, almost as far away from home as he can get without having to swim somewhere. He has no idea what the hell they’re going to do when they get there but it’s different, new, and everything he’s never known.

“Probably two or three days,” Jamie tells him as the sizzling dies out and then there’s a plate being slammed in front of Danny and the smell alone of cooked meat almost knocks him off his chair.

Danny wraps his hands around the burger and it’s so big he can’t quite get a grip on it, and it’s so juicy there’s liquid running down his palm, stinging at his skin but he can’t bring himself to care. “You’re amazing,” he says to Jamie and he means it, goddamn it, he means it and not only because he’s made Danny the first actual meal he’s had in the longest time. “I’m really sort of glad we found each other.”

Jamie rests his hand on the side of Danny’s face, just for a second. “Me too,” he says and then pulls away and walks off to play another song on the jukebox.

Danny is left alone at the counter, his face still warm from Jamie’s touch, and suddenly the burger doesn’t seem quite so interesting anymore. He still eats it though.

*

California isn’t really anything like Danny imagined. He always thought it would be crowded, populated, bumper to bumper traffic and smog so thick it would fill his lungs and leave him gasping for air. He thought it would be sunny and vibrating with energy, humid, loud.

Instead, the air is stagnant with the smell of rotting flesh (and it chokes Danny all the same) and there are no horns honking, no yelling and no shouting. There are no people alive to make noise, to clog the highways, to bump into him on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. This California is darker than what Danny had in mind but he’s here and far, far away from home.

Jamie drives through Los Angeles like he’s familiar with the city, swerves left and right, dodges dead vehicles, and he handles it like a pro now. He coasts to a stop and pulls hard on the parking brake. “We’re here.”

Danny doesn’t know where here is but he hops out of the car and puts one hand on Jamie’s shoulder, for balance, for direction. His cane is stuffed into his back pocket, where it almost permanently lives, but he leaves it there and relies on the warmth of Jamie’s body to lead him. “Where are we?”

Jamie stops abruptly and Danny runs into the back of him, smacks straight into Jamie’s tall and solid form. He’s rubbing at the bridge of his nose when Jamie says _Warner Brothers_ and then he’s wrapping his arms around Jamie, hugging him so tightly because this is where he’s always wanted to go, always wanted to be. This is his television set, his childhood, his memories, _Casablanca_.

“Thank you,” Danny says into the fabric of Jamie’s shirt and he doesn’t let go, not for a long, long time.

*

They tour the state like honeymooners, hand in hand and attached at the hip. It’s not romantic, not really, not in the way it should be. They step over corpses on Rodeo Drive and can’t make it up Mulholland because of the litter of cars. The Hollywood Bowl had been taken over by the government, used as a station to help the sick, bury the dead, and there are tents everywhere, cots and body bags. It’s not romantic at all. But Jamie’s hand is warm in Danny’s and he holds on tight, doesn’t let go, and helps him navigate through the treacherous sidewalks

They sit inside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and there is no movie playing, no popcorn popping, but they sit in the back row of a theater and make out like teenagers anyway. They walk down Hollywood Boulevard and Jamie reads out the plaques embedded in the concrete, names every major star. They visit Dodger Stadium and sit in the outfield grass that hasn’t been cut in who knows how long.

Danny runs his fingers through the thick and too long blades and this is familiar to him: baseball, the diamond, the scent of fresh cut grass, the sound of the ball hitting the bat. He feels almost at home here. “I love this place,” he says, ripping up a handful of grass and he wonders if he can pocket this, keep it as a souvenir and there’s nothing stopping him.

“I’ve never been to a baseball game,” Jamie admits and he’s lying on his back and it’s hard to hear him like this. His words float out into the air and drift away with the wind.

“It’s amazing,” Danny gushes and he stops himself before he goes on a rant. “I wish I could take you to one. You’d love it.”

Jamie’s finger find Danny’s sleeve and he pulls him down until they’re lying side by side, shoulder to shoulder and there’s no space between their bodies. “I would have liked that.”

They lay there until the air starts to cool and the sun must be setting in the horizon and then Jamie sits up. “Let’s go to the beach,” he says and now his words drift down, land on Danny loud and clear.

Danny reaches out, grasps at air until he finds Jamie and pulls him back down. “Tomorrow, Jamie. Tonight, we sleep under the stars in Dodger Stadium.”

And they do.

*

They set off for the shore and Danny keeps his window rolled down so the sea breeze will waft in, so he can smell anything that isn’t rotten flesh and ruptured intestines. The closer they get, the closer the scent of sand and salt and summer becomes and this is Danny’s first trip to the beach.

Jamie slows the car to a stop but he doesn’t put it in park, doesn’t pull the brake and remove the keys from the ignition. He sits there for a moment, still, unmoving, and Danny pokes him in the ribs to get him talking. “It’s a marina,” Jamie finally says.

“They have those around beaches, I hear.” Danny smiles and there are seagulls cawing in the distance and the salt is filling up his lungs now. This is nothing like home and he kind of loves it.

“Yeah, I know. Maybe we should check it out.” Jamie’s voice is a little tight, a little uncertain. He’s shifting in his seat like he’s uncomfortable and his jeans squeak loudly against the leather upholstery.

Danny gets what this is; he doesn’t even have to ask. It’s a plan, one that will take him so far away he’ll be in another country. He’ll be away from his backyard, from his memories, from everything. It’s a distraction for him and a homecoming for Jamie. He’s more than okay with that. “Do you know how to sail?”

Jamie laughs and his hand snakes its way onto Danny’s thigh, just like it did so many days ago when they first started this trip. “No, but how hard can it be?” Famous last words.

And Danny laughs with him, puts his hand on top of Jamie’s and tangles their fingers together. “Let’s go,” he says, nodding, and it’s all a little terrifying, all a little exciting.

There’s no reason not to go, not to take Jamie home. He’s leaving everything behind and maybe the awful smell of decomposition won’t follow them out to sea.

They head into the unknown, the unforgiving sea, and it’s okay. They aren’t alone anymore. They have each other and absolutely nothing to lose.

*  



End file.
